Income needed for a Czech mortgage in 2026: table by property price

Everyone asks the same question: how much do I need to earn to get a mortgage. The short and unwelcome answer is that you have to do the sums at a rate two percentage points above your own. This is not a safety margin someone invented — it is how the affordability check works, and it is why applications fall apart for people who can comfortably afford the payment the calculator showed them.

Below: what the regulator requires, what the bank adds on top, and what it comes to in crowns as of August 2026.

The short answer

A standard case: 20 percent deposit, 30-year term, the average rate offered on the market in August 2026. The last column is the household net income at which the payment fits inside 40 percent of income at the stressed rate.

Treat these as a guide, not a promise from any bank. Existing loans, credit card limits and dependent children are still to be deducted — see below.

Which part of this is the law and which part is the bank

Almost everyone confuses the two, advisers included, so it is worth separating them.

Only one indicator is legally binding: LTV, the share of the property value you may borrow. The ceiling is 80 percent, and 90 percent for applicants under 36 buying a home to live in themselves. The rule has applied since 1 April 2022, and a bank may exceed it on no more than 5 percent of the volume of new loans in a quarter.

The income indicators are no longer binding. The CNB switched off the upper limit on DSTI — the share of income going to loan payments — on 1 July 2023, and DTI, debt against annual income, on 1 January 2024. Formally, no law today prevents a bank from lending to a borrower at any level of indebtedness.

What does exist is a recommendation in force since 19 June 2023: treat with caution any application where the debt exceeds eight times annual net income or the payments swallow more than 40 percent of income. Banks follow it, and it has become the threshold applications actually hit.

The stress test: why they use someone else's rate

The second half of that recommendation is the real surprise for applicants. The bank tests your income not at your rate but at your rate plus two percentage points. The reasoning is that the fixation will end one day, and the payment must not become unmanageable when it does.

In practice: with the average rate offered in August 2026 at 5.42 percent, your affordability is judged at 7.42 percent. On a loan of 3.6 million crowns that is roughly 4,700 crowns a month of difference, and it pushes the income requirement up by almost a quarter.

Hence a practical rule: if the calculator on the bank's own website says you qualify by a hair, you almost certainly do not. Most of those calculators do not apply the stressed rate.

Rates in August 2026

Working "at the average rate" only helps if you know what the average is. Two figures circulate, and the gap between them is not an error — they measure different things.

• 5.42 percent — the average rate offered (Swiss Life Hypoindex, August 2026). This is what banks publish in their tariffs. It is the fifth monthly rise in a row and the highest level since August 2024.
• 4.90 percent — the average rate on contracts actually signed (CBA Hypomonitor, July 2026). This one reflects negotiation and individual discounts.

That half-point gap is essentially what a client wins by negotiating and by moving their current account to the lender. By fixation period, August looked like this: three years 5.17 percent, five years 5.41, ten years 5.93. The short fixation is cheaper — and the stress test matters more precisely because it is short.

What the bank deducts from your income

The 40 percent is not measured against your salary but against what is left of it. Deducted in turn:

• payments on existing loans — consumer credit, car finance, leasing;
• credit card and overdraft limits — a trap in its own right. The bank counts the limit itself as a burden, not what you have spent: typically 3 to 5 percent of it every month. An untouched card with a 100,000-crown limit can cost you 3,000 to 5,000 crowns of income in the calculation;
• the bank's own household cost norms — each lender sets its own, anchored to the statutory subsistence minimum but higher, and rising with household size;
• maintenance payments and dependent children.

So the first thing to do before applying is to close unused credit cards and cut your limits. This is not generic advice: the change shows up in the credit register and alters the calculation immediately.

Which binds first, DSTI or DTI

Both constraints apply at once, but at today's rates DSTI almost always bites first.

Take a flat at 4.5 million. On DTI — eight annual incomes against a debt of 3.6 million — 37,500 crowns net a month would be enough. On DSTI at the stressed rate you need 62,400. The gap is nearly double, and it is entirely a function of the rate level.

The consequence: extending the term helps, raising the deposit helps less. The term cuts the payment and hits DSTI directly; the deposit reduces both the debt and the payment but runs into the same percentage.

Under 36: the 90 percent rule and what it changes

The higher LTV ceiling relieves the pressure on your savings, not on your income. Borrowing 90 percent instead of 80 means less cash up front and a larger loan — and with it a larger payment and a higher income requirement.

On a flat at 4 million: at 80 percent the loan is 3.2 million, at 90 percent it is 3.6. You need 400,000 less of your own money and roughly 7,000 crowns a month more income. There is one condition for the allowance: the property must be bought to live in yourself.

A third flat, or buying to let: the rules changed in April 2026

Since 1 April 2026 the CNB recommends that banks apply tighter parameters to what it calls investment mortgages: LTV 70 percent and DTI 7. Two cases fall under it — buying residential property to rent out, and buying a third or any further residential property on credit.

Nothing changed for buying a home to live in: 80 percent still stands, and 90 percent for the under-36s.

In money: on a flat at 5 million you now need one and a half million of your own rather than one million, and the stricter overall debt ceiling applies on top.

If your income falls short

• A co-applicant. The most effective move by far: incomes add up while the household cost norm rises more slowly. A co-applicant need not be a spouse — banks accept parents and other relatives.
• A 30-year term or longer. The constraint is usually not the term itself but age: the loan has to be repaid by the time the applicant is 65 to 70.
• Close cards and small loans — as above, the effect is direct and quick.
• Apply to several banks. Cost norms and the treatment of non-standard income vary widely; a refusal from one bank tells you nothing about the rest.
• A short fixation. Lower rate, smaller payment, better DSTI — but the stress test and the risk of refinancing in three years do not go away.

Self-employed applicants are a separate calculation

Everything above assumes your income is evidenced by an employer's certificate. A self-employed applicant using lump-sum expenses, or the paušální daň regime, has a tax return showing an amount nobody could live on — and the standard calculation produces a refusal.

Some banks assess such applicants on turnover rather than on profit, and the difference runs to multiples. How that works, what share of turnover counts and where the caps sit is covered separately: mortgages for the self-employed: income from turnover.

Foreign applicants should start with a different question — which Czech banks lend at all on your residence status: requirements diverge more sharply there than they do on income.

To run your own numbers, use the calculator in the property section — it works out both the maximum loan your income supports and the monthly payment.

This article is for information and does not replace advice. Rates are as of August 2026 and change monthly; the CNB limits reflect the decisions and recommendations in force at the date of publication.

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